Full steam ahead

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Yesterday ESMA published the long outstanding
reference data for equities and bonds. Captains of the
industry might worry little about abbreviations such as LIS, SMS,
ADT, AVT or ADNT. But the engineers below deck understand
perfectly well that these are the crucial coordinates to keep the
ship on course. The reference data allows you to work out what
MiFID II really means at an instrument-by-instrument level and
turn lofty principles written in MiFID II into something
tangible. For example, while MiFID II introduces increased
transparency requirements in equities, it roughly classifies 93%
of the instruments as illiquid allowing them to be exempt from
the strictest rules. As we slowly comprehend the full impact, and
with some ongoing fine tuning by the regulators, the discussion
will certainly continue. And in the meantime there is not much
left to say, other than full steam ahead towards January 3rd.